Atlantic Ocean Floor Profile

The uss stewart used a navy sonic depth finder to draw a continuous map across the bed of the atlantic.

Atlantic ocean floor profile.

The outstanding feature of the atlantic floor is the mid atlantic ridge an immense median mountain range extending throughout the length of the atlantic claiming the centre third of the ocean bed and reaching roughly 1 000 miles 1 600 km in breadth. It covers approximately 20 percent of earth s surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. The sea floor can be subdivided into three major features.

The atlantic ocean is the second largest of the world s oceans with an area of about 106 460 000 km 2 41 100 000 sq mi. Atlantic ocean floor topography lab. In 1922 a historic moment in cartography and oceanography occurred. It separates the old world from the new world the atlantic ocean occupies an elongated s shaped basin extending longitudinally between europe and africa to the east.

The diagram above is a drawing of the bottom profile of the north atlantic ocean basin from the u s. Suppose you took a trip across the atlantic ocean and were able to check the depth of the water under your boat at regular intervals. Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. 1 continental margin 2 abyssal plain and 3 mid atlantic ridge.

The data table shows a record of the depth of the atlantic ocean measured by a research vessel travelling on course due east along 39on latitude. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. The spreading however is generally not uniform causing linear features perpendicular to the divergent boundaries. Because of this the youngest sea floor can be found along divergent boundaries such as the mid atlantic ocean ridge.

The second largest ocean on earth the atlantic drives our weather patterns including hurricanes and is home to many species from sea turtles to dolphins. Coast to europe showing the major features of the ocean floor. Be careful when interpreting this diagram and others like it because in order to show the various features clearly the vertical axis is exaggerated in this case by about 200 times. A topographic profile of the pacific ocean floor between japan and british columbia is shown in figure 18 3.